The other day as one opened the newspapers one found that one essential difference between India and Pakistan had been obliterated by events in the two countries. While two of the Lahore churches were subjected to suicide bombing killing as many as 70 church-goers and injuring a like number (some of them critically), an up and coming church in Hissar district of Haryana was demolished. While the Pakistani attacks on the churches were clear cases of terrorist attacks and were even owned by such an outfit, the one in India was the act of rabid Hindus who not only seemed to have razed the under-construction... Read More

Shiv Vishwanathan seems to have got it right. For those who do not know him, he is a social scientist and an intellectual of repute, who generally comments on matters of of random interest, politics and society. Writing in The Hindu a few days before the Delhi Election results came out, he could see the “Return of the AAP” – AAP standing for the AAM Admi Party, the party of the common man. Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) having become that “majoritarian phenomenon”, Vishwanathan saw the AAP becoming a formidable prospect for the Delhi elections. In the current environment, it was courageous... Read More

Durga Puja is the biggest festival in Bengal for its celebration of good’s triumph over evil. Every year Ma Durga returns to her ancestral home with her four children and so returns the pomp and grandeur. With magnificence and splendour the celebration of auspicious powers over bad breaks all the cultural and social barriers. Surely during this special occasion everyone wants to look their best. They pick up the best clothes teaming up with best accessories for the pandal hopping. With that jewelry plays a major role to make the whole look complete.

Days of speculation over who would be Lok Sabha candidate for the YSR Congress from Vijayawada in the coming general election are finally over. Founder-chairman and chief mentor of Trimex group Koneru Rajendra Prasad, who was formally inducted into the party in Hyderabad on Sunday, has been given the ticket.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Mr. Koneru Prasad confirmed that YSRC president Jaganmohan Reddy had given him the nod.

A first-time politician, Mr. Konreu Prasad claimed that he was a native of Vijayawada and was well versed in the political climate of Krishna... Read More

The recently published report by Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) shows a rise in the figures as Indian hand printed textile products are a favorite of the conventional and new emerging markets.

In the second quarter of 2013, exports saw a rise of 6.01 percent (US$ 174.65 million) as compared to last year’s figures of US$ 183.61 million, during the same time period. Apart from hand printed textiles and scarves, embroidered textiles and crochet products went up from US$ 313.99 million to US$ 321.78 million (2.48% growth); shawls and soft goods grew by 31.1% from US$ 42.06... Read More

So, North Korea has announced plans for further rocket launches and a nuclear test as ‘New phase of the anti-US struggle.’ The official communiqué could not make it any clearer;

We do not hide the fact that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets will be launched by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea one after another, and a nuclear test of a higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action will target against the US, the sworn enemy of the Korean people. Settling accounts with the US needs to be done with force, not with words. The world will... Read More

Last August, in China’s Hunan province, a woman by the name of Tang Hui was sent to a labour camp, sentenced to eighteen months‘re-education’ for “seriously disturbing the social order and exerting a negative impact on society.” Why, you may wonder, what was her crime? Simply that she had repeatedly petitioned officials, saying that the sentences passed against the men who had kidnapped, raped and forced her eleven-year-old daughter into prostitution should have been more severe.

Times have changed, even in China. In times past Tang Hui would simply have vanished into night and fog.... Read More